


Softer

by AssortedHeroes



Series: Heroes [2]
Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Dark Past, Established Relationship, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, F/M, Family Dynamics, Fluff, Light Angst, Living Together, Memories, References to Depression, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-05 08:35:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14614203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AssortedHeroes/pseuds/AssortedHeroes
Summary: Gopher's finally starting to adjust to his new home.





	Softer

Cooking duty was good. Cooking duty helped him think. With Izzie in the living room, braiding Violet's hair, Gopher could have the kitchen to himself and think. 

Noah-sama hadn't let him cook for himself. Noah-sama ate all the food. Sometimes, Gopher got to drink some tea when it wasn't made well, but Noah-sama was almost always the one who got it. 

Maybe Gopher should've been upset about being the one cooking now, but he wasn't. It was the same and different. The same because maybe he still wouldn't eat. Different because he was _choosing_ to do this for his girls. 

This life was softer. 

He remembered that when he got something wrong, when it didn't taste good enough, Noah-sama got angry. Very angry. 

Gopher had learned quickly not to mess up. 

Pain was a good motivator. 

Now, when something went wrong, they'd just laugh and order a pizza. 

Gopher liked that much better. 

It wasn't even that he was a bad cook. Sometimes it just didn't go well. He'd use sugar instead of salt or leave a casserole in too long. Noah-sama would be furious, but Violet and Izzie just hugged him.

He loved his girls. They were amazing. Kind and soft, and warm. Nothing like Noah-sama. 

The first time they'd all met, his mission was to kidnap Izzie. Her twelfth birthday. She'd come back from something called a convention, and she was dancing across the grass in her tiny backyard when he showed up. He'd been astounded - not because a normal person so young could be so flexible and agile, but because she looked exactly like his sister. The same plump cheeks, the same way of flipping her hair when she was upset. The same laugh. Her hair was blonde, but dark at the roots - hair dye. And she was small. Just the right size, the size he'd have expected his sister to be at her age. 

It scared him. He'd hesitated. 

That was when Violet appeared with the rest of the DWMA, guns blazing. Gopher's eyes narrowed and met her purple ones, and they rushed at each other. The two were evenly matched. Izzie was squealing out of excitement. 

Even after Noah-sama appeared, they'd lost. Izzie went with the students. 

Gopher was punished. 

The next meeting was after a more successful abduction at Baba Yaga Castle - not just the Shinigami that Noah-sama wanted, but Izzie and Violet, too. Izzie was the only one able to escape Eibon's book. This angered the chainsaw man, Giriko, but Gopher protected the girl. Noah-sama didn't seem to mind. 

Izzie was never meant to be special. Noah-sama had wanted the epitome of a normal human child, and she'd supposedly fit the bill. Then her connection with the Book became apparent. 

The bonds that held Violet and the Shinigami by their wrists burned her, and she was able to slip out of them with only a little struggle. Noah-sama, again, didn't seem to mind. As long as she stays in sight, he'd said, this one can roam as she pleases. She can't be contained with this magic. There's no point trying to restrain her. 

So Gopher kept an eye on the little one. They started to talk. Gopher learned that Izzie was a gymnast, that she liked anime, and that she lived with an older brother with no parents. Izzie learned that Gopher loved Noah-sama with all his heart and would do anything for him. Then, after he said she was already starting to join Noah-sama in how special she was to him, she said a few words that shook him to the core. 

_Is it because I'm like your sister?_

She said the Book told her. That scared him. 

Once she noticed how much the question freaked him out, she changed the subject to her life in Death City. 

Every night after the girl fell asleep, Gopher would go back to Violet and the Shinigami and attack. Mostly the Shinigami - Violet's abduction hadn't been planned. From what he understood, she was with Izzie and the Shinigami and simply got caught up in what was going on. So, he wasn't jealous of her. 

Sometimes Noah-sama would put the Shinigami back into the Book and then it was just Violet.

Violet liked to be a _douche._

Everything that came out of her mouth seemed designed to piss Gopher off. From well-placed insults to condescending questions about his devotion to Noah-sama, she knew exactly how to push his buttons, and he hated it. He couldn't even take her anger out on her effectively, because every time he touched her, his skin was burned.

"Why do you like to torture me so much?" Gopher asked once. 

"Because you and I are connected, and I hate it." 

That was the point where he realized that yes, they were, and they were Soulmates. 

Not in the romantic sense, but their souls clicked in the moment they first met, and they were still connected.

After the escape, he could still feel her, all the way until the confrontation on the moon. Izzie was filming as their group (a zombie, a new Noah-sama, and some Meister-Weapon pair he'd never met before) descended toward the Kishin, and she started to sing when Violet showed hints of panic. They'd bonded so much and so fast. It wasn't fair. 

"When you are with me, there's no place I'd rather be." 

Those eyes the color of amethysts bored into him. 

Then, when Izzie decided to jump off a cliff and meet the Kishin, Violet shoved the camera into his hands and jumped after her. A flabbergasted gasp followed that, and then again when she heard that little voice in his head - _Help me._ So he did, and Violet was flying. 

She was consumed by madness by the time the rest of them got down there. Izzie wasn't. 

Gopher didn't know why, but he wanted to help. So he did. Their souls flowed as one for the first time and he pulled her out, and she was shaking, but she smiled and hugged him. 

The Kishin escaped outside. Violet's parents were there, and her father - what _was_ a father, anyway? - protected her from a blast of Vajra. He seemed dead. 

Gopher saw her panic completely, fall to her knees, tears flying and her whole body shaking - and he rushed over, took her in his arms. Why? He didn't know. He just knew that he understood what she felt in that moment. To lose your whole world. 

After that day, he was a student at DWMA. He lived in Violet's little apartment with her and Izzie. Things were calm and okay, for the most part.

There was a party at the school to celebrate his sixteenth birthday. For a while before they went there, though, they spent time at the Shinigami's house, playing a game that involved two people locked in a room together. 

Violet explained, when they were paired up, that the expectation was kissing. 

He didn't know what kissing was about. 

She showed him by kissing _him._

From then on they'd been a couple, almost like parents for Izzie. It was sweet. He loved his new life, even though sometimes, he found himself slipping back into a rut of hopelessness and lack of motivation.

The girls always helped him back out. Back on his feet. 

Violet had her parents over from Japan every few weeks - her dad was okay, as it turned out. They were the best kind of people. Loving. Kind. No judgement. 

As a partner, Violet was probably the best ever. Neither of them were Weapons, but they didn't need that. They had each other. Two Grigori-type souls with extensive combat training? Even the Kishin wouldn't stand a chance, and he was still out there which meant maybe they'd get to show him that. 

Dinner was ready. Gopher set it out on plates and brought it out to the girls, who smiled. 

"Promise you didn't burn it this time," said Violet. 

"I swear. I'm not a kid, you know." 

Izzie laughed through a mouth of pasta. "You still act like one!" 

Yeah, Gopher liked his new life. 

It was so much softer.


End file.
